Feeding issues! AAAARGH!

[Jermz79]

I have never seen such a mess while trying to feed my fish!!!!

My dilemma ...

If I feed flake food, it gets sucked right into my PH's and shot out like mad all over the tank (little tiny specs) ... no one gets any food, except the hermits! If I turn the PH's off it seems a little better but the flakes sink to the bottom and as soon as I turn the PH's back on they get sucked in!

If I feed frozen food, I defrost it in some RO/DI water and then dump it in the tank it immediately sinks and again sits on the bottom. Again if I turn the PH's off it's a little better but as soon as their back on the food swirls around and the fish go crazy trying to catch it.

Eventually the fish get tired of chasing this food around and look like they just give up on it and then I have uneaten food on the bottom of the tank!
My hermits are loving it, but the fish are not???????

Help me out here. How does everyone feed? and lets say you have 2 diff. fish i.e. Clown and Angel, do you feed the Angel one type of food and the Clown another or what? I have noticed my Clown will nip at anything in the tank, but the Angel will not and only likes the frozen Angel Formula?

My LFS says to put the frozen food in some type of net, but my fish see a net coming in and their gone!!!!!!! Very Understandable!


Thanks,
Jermz

 

[Bearfan]

I feed frozen blender mush by thawing it out, sucking it up in a turkey baster, then using the turkey baster to slowly release the food. It also allows me to target feed the shy fish and make sure that everyone eats. I do release it fairly slowly. It takes about 5 minutes usually or more to feed everyone, but I enjoy watching them feed anyway.

 

[Brodie]

You could always try just dropping your frozen food into the tank directly. I juse Prime Reef and throw a cube or two in. It floats, so it might not be such a problem that way.

 

[Dr.Nate]

I have these same issues.....I just turn all my ph's and filters off.....let everyone get their fill....sometimes takes 20 or 30 minutes....then turn everything back on. When I turn it back on, it's like a blizzard for awhile with uneaten food flying around, but eventually all the filtering takes care of it. I only feed 3X per week too.

 

[Jermz79]

I've tried just dropping in pieces of a cube .... a whole cube would be overkill on my tank!!!! It floats for a few minutes ... until it's water logged and then it sinks.

right now I feed 3X per week, but with the Clown and the Angel both eating different foods, I almost have to alternate!

any other options?

thanks to those that have replied!!


Jermz

 

[SirLight1337]

I have since switched to mysis shrimp. I put a cube in a little container ( or half cube depending on your livestock) Soak it in some Zoe and Garlic Xtream , then add a little bit of tank water a few hrs later and mix it till its desolved. add straight to the tank right in the directly flow of a PH and it kinda floats half way, but my fish move so fast its gone in less then a minute or two. Flakes should be more of a snack anyway. Also, IME everything in the tank will love the mysis. The frozen formula 1 and such never fully desolve no matter what you do. 1 fish will always end up stealing the cube and having a FEAST.

 

[SALTYDAWGY]

You might want to also clip a piece of Nori (Seaweed) on a suction cup on the tank wall every few days. Atleast it's stationary.

 

[Jermz79]

How big of a piece do you clip on? I have seen sheets of plain nori at a asian market, is there a better place to get it?

and angels do eat nori right? I see they also eat spirulina, what exactly is that ... I googled it and came up with a health food type algea? Where would you get spirulina?

 

[melosu58]

I get mine from my LFS

 

[Phyl]

When I feed my fish I defrost the food in a "solo cup" (little plastic disposable containers picked up from various FF resturants ... shhhhh). Then I pour a *tiny* little bit in at a time. Just as much as all the fish can consume in 10-20 seconds. If there's a piggy fish then pour an even tinier bit in two different spots. Then I wait a few minutes and pour a little more in (etc. etc) until all the food is gone. The fish are able to consume most of the food this way leaving only scant droppings for the inverts at the bottom of the tank. I do all of this with all of my powerheads off. This also gives my corals a chance to feed on the remains and cyclopeeze that goes in for them while the water sits. The water gets turned back on when feeding time is over (I usually leave them off for an extra 20-30m after feeding time for invert absorption).

HTH.

 

[pearsont74]

ok....heres what i do
i had a feed cone for feeding blood worms to freshwater still and i cut a few larger holes in the cone and i drop a frozen cube in there and as it defrost is breaks apart o r I break it apart and it slowly releases enough so that the fish can eat it before it all drops to the bottom

 

[Jermz79]

see thats the thing, my frozen food does not break apart when defrosted it just swells up!

It is really kind of irritating to sit there and watch these fish try so hard to grab one flake of food and then hunt for more ... which has usually fallen to the substrate by then ... or sucked up in the PH's and torn to shreds!!!!!

 

[pearsont74]

well....alot of the cubes i have to mash up against the side of the cone and once it is mashed it breaks up enough to get thru the holes
it has worked so far for me

 

[Jermz79]

I'll have to try that!

Is this feeding cone something you made or bought?

 

[pearsont74]

bought...just look in the water section
its called a worm feeder
http://www.petsolutions.com/Worm+Feeder-I-10810526-I-.aspx

 

[Jermz79]

AWESOME ... thanks for the link!! That looks like it will solve my problem.

Kudos to you pearsont74!!!!!!!!!

 

[pearsont74]

nah....no need to
advice comes around and goes around
just dont like the people that tell you it cant be done - we wouldnt be here if people didnt try things that werent recommended

 

[Jermz79]

welp too late!

 

[melosu58]

I hear so many people talking about Cyclopeeze. What is this?

 

[Jermz79]

Cyclop-eeze is a unique form of zooplankton, one of the many types of copepods found throughout the earth’s waters. It is unique from other copepods in that the habitat Cyclop-eeze are “farmed” in, is unlike any other, producing a species which has superior nutrition compared to similar organisms.

http://www.freezerbar.com/

http://www.cyclop-eeze.com/